🦴 Dog Food Knowledge: No. 4, The Digestive Process

It all starts with one bite. But what happens next is far more complex and far more important than most dog owners realise.

🐶 How Digestion Works in Dogs

Dogs have powerful jaws and large mouths for a reason. They evolved to crush, tear, and swallow big chunks of meat and bone. Their saliva kicks off digestion, and a long oesophagus leads to the stomach where the real work begins.

Inside the stomach, hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes break down food into a liquid. From here, it moves into the small intestine where the body starts absorbing nutrients. These nutrients are then delivered to cells across the body. The leftover waste heads to the large intestine, then out of the body as faeces.

This is where true nutrition happens, not in the mouth, not in the bowl, but deep inside the gut. And this is where most people misunderstand their dog’s toilet habits. Some dogs poo once a day. Some five times. But frequency means very little. What matters is the consistency, firm, formed, and easy to collect. That is your real sign of balance.

Sweet potato, often criticised by marketing-led panic, has proven to be one of the most effective ways to support proper bowel flushing. Our own data shows a combined use of sweet potato and white potato performs far better than either alone. So when people say “less in, less out”, they miss the biological truth. The aim is not less poo. The aim is healthy poo. And that comes from well-structured food that the body understands.

🧠 The Autonomic Nervous System and Digestion

Digestion is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. This system runs your dog’s core processes like heart rate, breathing, and organ function without needing conscious effort.

When food is eaten, this system ramps up digestion. But stress or fear can shut that down instantly. That’s why nervous dogs often get upset stomachs. Their body moves energy away from digestion and towards survival.

🧪 Liver Function and Detox

The liver is the body’s biochemical HQ. It breaks down fats, processes nutrients, and filters drugs and toxins. It also produces bile, which helps break down fats and remove waste.

Blood carrying oxygen flows into the liver through one vein. Blood carrying nutrients flows in through another. Together, they supply everything the liver needs to do its job, making key proteins, managing cholesterol, storing iron, and removing harmful substances through faeces or urine.

If the liver is overloaded, whether by poor food, cheap additives, or constant medication, your dog’s entire system pays the price.

⚠️ What Disrupts Digestion?

Digestion can be weakened by:
• Illness (especially viral or bacterial)
• Stress and anxiety (which suppress digestion)
• Parasites (like worms stealing nutrients)
• Poor food choices (cheap fillers, allergens, or chemical-laden treats)

It’s not always obvious. Many digestive problems are low-level but long-term. Think poor stools, regular vomiting, itchy skin, poor coat, ear infections, excess eye discharge, bloating, fussy eating, or poor sleep.

These signs are whispers from the gut that something is wrong.

🧬 Nutrition: Fuel for Every Cell

Every cell in your dog’s body relies on nutrients to survive, function, and reproduce. Without them, nothing works. Not the eyes. Not the skin. Not the brain. It’s all connected.

But nutrition isn’t just about what goes in. It’s about what gets absorbed. That’s why feeding a premium label means nothing if your dog cannot break it down and use it.

And here’s where many owners go wrong.

They assume any dry food or raw meat or home-cooked meal automatically delivers nutrition. But if the gut is weak, inflamed, stressed, or overburdened with rubbish, it cannot extract and absorb those nutrients properly.

💡 This Can Be Fixed. But It Takes Work

Many dogs have been struggling since puppyhood. Sadly, many owners who unknowingly caused the issue continue making it worse. They expect quick results, change foods constantly, and push their dog further into imbalance.

Fixing this is possible. But it takes:
• Discipline (to feed consistently to ideal weight)
• Patience (to stop jumping from food to food)
• Understanding (to realise this is biology, not branding)

It’s not a quick fix. It’s a journey. But every week you feed the right way, the gut improves. The immune system stabilises. And your dog starts to heal from the inside out.

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Your dog, if it could talk, would worship you even more than it already does. 🐾